# Best Sprites?



## ZuZu (Mar 16, 2010)

I was just thinking... What's the best generation of Pokemon sprites, to you? I think HG/SS is the most AMAZING generation! Well, you can even pick G/S/C if it's your favourite...

And at least tell us WHY you like it. LOL.

I like HG/SS sprites because of the shading and the new poses. 

I know it's not much but I fail at expressing stuff like that.


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## Chopsuey (Mar 16, 2010)

I haven't seen the HG/SS sprites yet but they will be awesome I'm sure!

R/S/E

More original. Plus, D/P and Pt sprites messed up a few Pokemon, big time. For example, in D/P, Aerodactyl had WAY too big of a mouth!


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## Doctor Jimmy (Mar 16, 2010)

D/P sprites are the best. Large, colorful, and move when they enter battle. From what I've seen from D/P, HG/SS sprites should be pretty good.


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## blazheirio889 (Mar 17, 2010)

G/S/C for me.

It's not the older generations' faults that the sprites couldn't be colourful. Their shading was good, though, as were their poses. I'm not very fond of the HG/SS sprites, to be honest :| Just look at Jolteon.


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## Blastoise Fortooate (Mar 17, 2010)

Oh god, blahzy, I think I just threw up a little. 0__o

I like the newer generations. :P Yes, I'm shallow and like the newer and shinier ones. Is that such a terrible character flaw?


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## glitchedgamer (Mar 17, 2010)

HG/SS's look nice, but some look very awkward. I have to say it's between the 1st and 2nd Gen for me. 1st because they were so funny, and 2nd for looking the best. My all time favorite sprite is Houndoom in Gold.


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## Chopsuey (Mar 17, 2010)

Change it to HG/SS! I just got it and the sprites are badaaaaassssss!


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## Ymedron (Mar 17, 2010)

FR/LG to me.
While I like the larger size of the new sprites, FR/LG had a certain feel to it... The pokemon were more colorful than in Ruby/Sapphire, and they are skillfully made.

I haven't looked at HG/SS, but in Diamond at least the backsprites were nasty. There were a lot of beginner's mistakes in them. I not liek. l:<


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## ZuZu (Mar 17, 2010)

The DPPt backsprites had hardly any shading at all, I know. Now I'm going off to see what the hell happened to Jolteon. -toddles off-

EDIT: OH MY GOD, WHAT THE HELL DID THEY DO TO MEWTWO, ONIX, JOLTEON, QUILAVA AND NINETALES??!!?!?!??!?!


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## blazheirio889 (Mar 17, 2010)

You see what I mean now? xD; Sorry for any... suffering I forced on people, but it had to be done. *slaps Blastoise on the back*

Anyway, I found an article on what they call 'The Demise of Sprites'. It explains my opinion quite nicely.


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## Chopsuey (Mar 17, 2010)

Jolteon DPPt or HG/SS? Cause still... Aerodactyl in DPPt is one of the worst. Watch Rhyhorn in DP, and tell ME RHYHORN ISN'T HUMPING SOMETHING! X3


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## blazheirio889 (Mar 17, 2010)

In HG/SS. I personally love Jolteon's DPPt sprite.


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## Spoon (Mar 17, 2010)

I'm not picking a poll option, because Red and Blue are a separate category from Yellow in my head. I might be am biased since it was my first game. I'm particularly a fan of Paras', Lapras', Dragonair's, Pikachu's, and the starters' (and evolutions') sprites.


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## nothing to see here (Mar 18, 2010)

Hmm...

*Red/Blue(/Green):* Some are okay, others are pretty bad... but in the "Vanilla Ice" way (maybe it's not really great or anything, but at least you can laugh at it and enjoy the silliness) rather than the "Internet memes" way (we'd all be better off if it didn't exist.)  A lot of the Pokémon look goofy and deformed, but in most cases they still work... somehow.

*Yellow:* Somewhere between R/B/G and G/S/C.  The good ones range from "like R/B/G but better looking" to G/S/C-level... but for some reason most of the _bad_ ones in Yellow are the "horrible-bad" type, rather than the "funny-bad" type.

*Gold/Silver/Crystal:* Good.

*R/S/E:* Pretty good.  Some of the bigger ones (Kyogre, Groudon) suffer due to their designs being too "big" and detailed to really fit into the small space they're given.

*FR/LG:* Usually indistinguishable from R/S/E.  Occasionally better or worse.  I can't see why FR/LG has a seperate poll option while Yellow doesn't... all of Yellow's sprites were _completely_ different from R/B/G, while FR/LG only made new (and sometimes even then they didn't look _that_ different) sprites for the 1st-gen Pokémon and maybe a few others.

*D/P:* Probably the best so far.  Like R/S/E's but with more room to work with, so there's less "scrunched" ones (though some--Dialga, Palkia, Giratina in D/P--still manage to look scrunched) and the colors are generally better.  They screwed a few of them up pretty bad, but overall I think D/P's sprites are the best so far.

*Platinum:* When they get them right, they're as good as D/P (or sometimes better! Dialga/Palkia/Giratina and a few others that had bad or "scrunched"-looking sprites before got a huge improvement between D/P and Platinum.)  When they get them wrong, though... they get them _very_ wrong.  Like missing shading in obvious places, or putting them into completely retarded poses for no good reason, or lazily using a second-frame-of-an-animation pose as the first frame instead of actually coming up with a new sprite.

*HG/SS:* Haven't seen them in-game yet, but based on the few that I've seen on the Internet (mostly just the Smogon "HG/SS sprites are bad" article someone linked to)... it looks like the guys who made the bad sprites in Platinum are at it again.  Lots of randomly awful shading (though I don't see why the Poliwrath is so bad; for something that's supposed to have "shading so offensively bad I can't describe it," it sure looks a lot better than all of the other examples of bad shading on that page.)  And somehow they managed to make an _even worse_ Mewtwo than the already-not-good D/P one.  And I honestly can't see how _anyone_ likes the new Lugia sprite... it's really, _really_ bad.  Of course, the ones in that article are probably just the really bad ones, and (like Platinum) it'll probably also have some that are much better than the ones in D/P... so I can't really say much here until I've seen more of the sprites.


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## ZuZu (Mar 18, 2010)

Yeah, they had to go and ruin Mewtwo. But the Mew sprite is SO cute.


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## Professor Wesker (Mar 18, 2010)

Am I the only one who thinks all the sprites in HG/SS are amazing. It may just come from how dang attractive Karen, Sabrina, and Dahlia are <3


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## ZuZu (Mar 18, 2010)

I think a majority of the HG/SS sprites are amazing, Sneezy Sneasel Lover. 
Some...
Some the Pokemon company just damn killed/ruined! I mean, look at Mewtwo! THEY RUINED MEWTWO!!! *cry*


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## Yarnchu (Mar 19, 2010)

The best sprites by far have to be the Yellow sprites. With a few exceptions, the proportions are correct, the poses are great, and the shading and color choices make the best of the limitations. HG/SS do have some plain bad sprites, but the sprites that are good are *really* good. Go see Marowak, Kabutops, Haunter, Snorlax, and Totodile for some examples.

G/S/C, while having great shading to work around the color limitations(fewer/no shades, so the heavy use of dithering works great here), have some really poor sprites for the new Pokemon. The 1st Gen monster; however, are improved upon from R/B, but the majority of which aren't really as great as Yellow.

R/S/E and FR/LG are okay. Some of them just feel a little stiff. Really, the only thing going for them are the additional colors used for shading.

D/P/Pt are sorta like HG/SS, except there are fewer good ones and, for the most part, feel like R/S/E sprites that were fitted with new colors and shading and more breathing room for the size. But by god, what did the 4th gen _do_ to Machoke? D/P looks like a duck, while Pt and HG/SS he is just plain ugly.

My favorites are the 1st Gen sprites, just due to how dang hilarious they are(aside from Yellow, of course). BTW, Yellow really needs a seperate option, it's sprites are just that different from the other 1st Gen sprites.

This is all coming from the point of view of a pixel artist that has been spriting for a few years now, so I think I know what I'm talking about.


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## Storm Earth and Fire (Mar 19, 2010)

My favorite sprites are probably a grab bag of Yellow, G/S/C, and R/S. Based on random lookups and memory, those games had my favorite sprites. The poses are just right in most of them, which I think is most important, though the shading is nothing to scoff at. HG/SS sprites are mostly an improvement over the D/P/Pt ones, though Jolteon was certainly mangled. We trade that for a decent Vulpix, as opposed to the indecent one from D/P/Pt. Indecently funny, but still weird.


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## ZuZu (Mar 20, 2010)

But HG/SS provided us with a rotten-looking Mewtwo.


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## Yarnchu (Mar 20, 2010)

I actually like that pose they put Mewtwo in. I just wish they hadn't made it so small looking....


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## Flygon1 (Mar 20, 2010)

I have to admit that the newer sprites are much prettier in terms of colors, size, and shading, but they seem to have departed from the original Pokemon feel. For instance, Pikachu has gotten distorted and malformed from Yellow's cute, chubby mouse in Generation IV. And there really is no excuse for what happed to Lugia's legs in its HG/SS sprite, or... well, you all know what happened to Jolteon. On the other hand, Raikou's proportions were greatly improved in HG/SS, with the longer legs. In summary, the older sprites are better, even more so when they're revamped.


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## Elliekat (Mar 20, 2010)

I'm quite partial to the RSE sprites. They have soft outlines and nice colors which makes them look pretty. The new sprites have colors that are too bright and make the Pokemon look strange or flat.


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## Butterfree (Mar 21, 2010)

blazheirio889 said:


> You see what I mean now? xD; Sorry for any... suffering I forced on people, but it had to be done. *slaps Blastoise on the back*
> 
> Anyway, I found an article on what they call 'The Demise of Sprites'. It explains my opinion quite nicely.


I really find that article rather puzzling. Many of the sprites he's ridiculing look just fine, really, and those that don't are largely being criticized for completely the wrong reasons. Meanwhile, bizarrely, he's praising the really rather tiny-looking Lugia, the just plain weird-looking Gyarados, the painfully awkward-looking Houndoom and the awfully off-balance Kabutops. And I do not understand how he can possibly consider the R/G/B sprites in any way superior to any later sprite set. Though there are a few good ones among them (clearly drawn by the only competent artist working in the company at the time), most of them are simply very poorly drawn from any objective standpoint and anatomically nonsensical.

In my opinion:

R/G/B: A few of them were clearly drawn by a decent artist and actually look quite good. Most of them, however, as I said, are anatomically nonsensical and extremely awkwardly drawn.

Yellow: Most of them look absolutely lovely. But nonetheless, several are undeniably awkward, usually by looking a lot chubbier than they ought to (Pidgeotto, Nidorina, Cubone, Jynx, Pinsir and Tauros come to mind), and several, while looking fine in their own right, just really don't quite look like themselves (Fearow looks softer and has none of the aggression that usually characterizes it; Rhydon really looks quite feminine; Jolteon doesn't look as spiky as usual; Articuno looks like a completely different bird) and some of the poses look awfully stiff (especially Moltres, Nidoqueen and Rattata).

G/S/C: The main problem with the G/S/C sprites is that a lot of them have weird or awkward proportions and many Pokémon are just plain weirdly shaped. A lot of them have heads that are too big compared to their bodies (Charizard, Rapidash, Rhydon, Croconaw, Ampharos, Sneasel, Slugma) and many have body parts that simply look severely misshapen or just don't have enough definition in their shape: Charizard's head in Silver is just plain awful, as is Pidgeot's crest in Gold; Marowak's head looks too soft and vaguely shaped in both Gold and Silver; Scyther's head looks very weird in both; Moltres's wings have no definition; the Gold version Houndoom's hind legs are nonexistent; Raikou's head looks demented all the way until Crystal; Tyranitar's head is just odd; Raichu just looks horribly misshapen in both; I could go on. A lot of it, I think, is just that the frames were so small.

R/S/E: Usually quite good. Only a few Pokémon look seriously off (Charizard, Butterfree, Nidorino and Lugia most so in my opinion; somewhat less, Nidoqueen, Jolteon, Moltres, Houndoom and Suicune).

FR/LG: No idea what that article-writer was on about with them being bad; I find most of them to be an improvement over the R/S sprites, with Charmander, Rattata, Rapidash, Scyther and Articuno being the main ones to look worse to a significant extent as far as I'm concerned, and even some of those aren't necessarily bad so much as just not as good as the R/S ones. There are a couple of other awkward ones, but overall they're quite good.

D/P: Mostly look great. Some are awkward, and many looked better in R/S or FR/LG, but nearly all of them are quite all right. Some have odd shading, but no matter what people say I really don't find this all that noticeable or problematic.

Platinum: Most are better than their D/P counterparts and in more dynamic poses or look about equal, with a few that are worse (Rampardos comes to mind).

HG/SS: There are several very awkward-looking ones and many that were definitely better in D/P or Platinum, but really, most are just fine, and the good ones are _epic_. For some reason, the one that stands out the most to me is Scizor, whose pose looks so badass it almost makes me want to evolve a Scyther when I look at it. The most problematic thing about them overall, I think, is that a lot of them feel less well shaded than D/P.


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## Chopsuey (Mar 21, 2010)

Butterfree said:


> HG/SS: There are several very awkward-looking ones and many that were definitely better in D/P or Platinum, but really, most are just fine, and the good ones are _epic_. For some reason, the one that stands out the most to me is Scizor, whose pose looks so badass it almost makes me want to evolve a Scyther when I look at it. The most problematic thing about them overall, I think, is that a lot of them feel less well shaded than D/P.


ACK DON'T TAKE AWAY THE POOR BUGS SPEED AND SCYTHES! ;-; Yes, I agree, Scizor looks awesome. I also love the Scyther and Murkrow sprite in HG/SS. Scyther looks sexy; great pose, the scythes have excellent detail, and the facial features turned out nicely. I mainly like Murkrow for it's eyes..,


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## Yenaa (Mar 21, 2010)

I like the tranquility of FR/LG sprites.

RS sprites were ok sometimes. Kinda bland in retrospect.

DP sprites were so boring and posed. They weren't natural.

Some Plat sprites were good. I love Magmortar's Platinum sprite. Others were justed flipped frames.

Some HGSS sprites look stupid. The infamous Pinsir example. The Eeveelutions look terrible in HGSS. Jolteon, Vaporeon and Flareon look stupid. Espeon looks like it's head is about to fall off. Umbreon looks fat.

EDIT: Pure crap. - Smogon is so superficial and crude. :/ You should go by what they say or let their opinions sway your judgement. Those people probably do not have any spriting skills whatsoever and if they do, they probably don't have the ability that the programmers at Pokemon do.


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## ZuZu (Mar 21, 2010)

Well, now Butterfree's stated her opinion I _have_ to agree. 

HG/SS has a lot of good poses and more angry faces than cute ones. It brings out the true "monster" in Pokemon for me. Apart from Jolteon being mixed up and Mewtwo having an odd pose, HG/SS is pretty awesome. 

DPPt did have some stiff poses, yeah, but the sprites were bigger and looked more menacing. That's the completely good thing about it.

That's about it from me right now...


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## Autumn (Mar 21, 2010)

ZuZu said:


> Well, now Butterfree's stated her opinion I _have_ to agree.


er what

since when is Butterfree some sort of ~GODDESS OF SPRITE OPINIONS~

o.O

(I don't have anything to contribute beyond that, because that comment was just plain _weird_)


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## ZuZu (Mar 21, 2010)

O_O Her opinion is really my opinion too...


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## Butterfree (Mar 21, 2010)

> I also love the Scyther and Murkrow sprite in HG/SS. Scyther looks sexy; great pose, the scythes have excellent detail, and the facial features turned out nicely.


Err, what? That's probably the most demented-looking Scyther sprite since R/G/B. o_O The head looks like whut and the legs look horribly twisted around. It's by far the single worst sprite in HG/SS as far as I'm concerned.


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## Yarnchu (Mar 21, 2010)

Butterfree said:


> Err, what? That's probably the most demented-looking Scyther sprite since R/G/B. o_O The head looks like whut and the legs look horribly twisted around. It's by far the single worst sprite in HG/SS as far as I'm concerned.


I don't know, I don't think anything can beat super chubby Donphan. Sure, it isn't as horrid looking as Scyther in terms of actual appearance, but this is the first time a Pokemon actually looks like it will have a heart attack.







Chubby cheeks+stubby legs+VERY round body=horribly proportioned sprite


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## Yenaa (Mar 21, 2010)

superyoshi888 said:


> I don't know, I don't think anything can beat super chubby Donphan. Sure, it isn't as horrid looking as Scyther in terms of actual appearance, but this is the first time a Pokemon actually looks like it will have a heart attack.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Donphan is chubby. :/ It think it looks great. It's not supposed to be skinny. It's an elephant. Elephants are fat.

It's round because it needs to be to curl up into a ball and use Rollout. 

It's stubby legs. What? It's short. It not a giraffe.


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## Butterfree (Mar 21, 2010)

I have to agree with Yenaa; Donphan just looks like that. :/ Take it up with Ken Sugimori's design, not with the sprite.


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## Autumn (Mar 21, 2010)

ZuZu said:


> O_O Her opinion is really my opinion too...


... _why_

(sorry to harp on this subject but that was such a weird comment that I have to)

Anyway, I kind of like the HGSS Scyther. I dunno why, I just do. o.O


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## Blastoise Fortooate (Mar 21, 2010)

> since when is Butterfree some sort of ~GODDESS OF SPRITE OPINIONS~


since forever that's when.

Anywho, Fearow's neck looks broken and Swalot's mouth is wtf.


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## ZuZu (Mar 21, 2010)

WTF?!?!??!!?!?!?!?!?!? 
Swalot's mouth shading is damn horrid.


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## 1. Luftballon (Mar 21, 2010)

swalot's mouth om nom nom nom lol


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## blazheirio889 (Mar 21, 2010)

Yenaa said:


> EDIT: Pure crap. - Smogon is so superficial and crude. :/ You should go by what they say or let their opinions sway your judgement. Those people probably do not have any spriting skills whatsoever and if they do, they probably don't have the ability that the programmers at Pokemon do.


I'm pretty sure you meant "shouldn't", but that's beside the point.

I agree that they were being harsh, but I'm not very fond of the HG/SS sprites, save for a select few. Kabutops, Scizor, Moltres, just to name a few, are some that I like. But others have very strange proportions - the infamous Jolteon, for one, and off the top of my head, Typhlosion's arm seems to be lacking an elbow. Overall, the shading isn't as good as I'd like it to be, and that's probably the biggest reason the HG/SS sprites aren't as eye-pleasing to me - I'm a "shading is _best thing evar_ :D" person.

I'm going on memory, mostly. I remember the R/B/Y sprites as... interesting - some of them were pretty good, though. And I remember the G/S/C sprites being my favourite - in my opinion, since the second generation, they just haven't been able to sprite Typhlosion the same. Now that I look back, some of them do look odd, but overall I still prefer them (D/P/Pt comes close though), all things considered.


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## 1. Luftballon (Mar 21, 2010)

memory is a strange thing. but I remember golbat and mankey from blue were... strange, to say the least.


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## Yarnchu (Mar 21, 2010)

Butterfree said:


> I have to agree with Yenaa; Donphan just looks like that. :/ Take it up with Ken Sugimori's design, not with the sprite.


Since when did Donphan ever look like that? Sure, it always was a little short and chubby, but not to the extreme it is in HG/SS. :/


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## blazheirio889 (Mar 21, 2010)

sreservoir said:


> memory is a strange thing. but I remember golbat and mankey from blue were... strange, to say the least.


I don't remember what Mankey looked like, but I remember Golbat scared me.


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## 1. Luftballon (Mar 21, 2010)

mankey is a blob with semicircles coming out of it.


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## Green (Mar 21, 2010)




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## 1. Luftballon (Mar 22, 2010)

it's quite a bit worse in black and white.


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## ZuZu (Mar 22, 2010)

-goes off to look at Golbat-


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## brandman (Mar 28, 2010)

I would have to say HG/SS. They have good poses and they're very colorful. I'm mad because someone has yet to rip the sprites for the games. :angry:


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## Green (Mar 28, 2010)

brandman1996 said:


> I would have to say HG/SS. They have good poses and they're very colorful. I'm mad because someone has yet to rip the sprites for the games. :angry:


What? They're everywhere. On Bulbapedia, TSR, and probably many other places.

...Mine would have o be D/P. A great way to start a generation. :3


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## brandman (Mar 28, 2010)

Fish and Ships said:


> What? They're everywhere. On Bulbapedia, TSR, and probably many other places.


As soon as I wrote it, I re-looked TSR and found them. They're really great! If you look in my siggy then you can see a trainer card made with HG/SS sprites. See their colorfulness yourself.


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## Dannichu (Apr 3, 2010)

I voted G/S/C just for Crystal. Crystal's sprites were fantastic (turning on my shiny new G/S upgrade and having Tododile dance and Chikorita swish its leaf around filled with unexplainable amounts of joy) and, as far as I'm concerned, by far the best we've ever had (accounting for what they had to work with at the time in terms of technology). 
Every sprite gen had its few odd-looking sprites, but I loved Crystal's animations so, so much, and I really think that nothing we've seen since comes close. I was so sad when R/S got rid of animations, but then Emerald happened and I wish they'd stayed un-animated, especially since they _continued_ with the horrible expanding and flashing-of-other-colours as a kind of "animation" in D/P and then _again_ in HG/SS! What the hell, Nintendo? You've already shown us you can do animations with more than one alternate pose (who can resist Rattata's little "Rawr!" and bum-wiggle, or Spearow lifting up its wing to scratch its belly?); there's absolutely no need to have the horribly jumpy/pulsating/flashy "animations" we've seen in the last three or more games.

(though, in terms of back-sprites, so many Pokemon were laughably _short_ in G/S/C - Donphan and Raikou make me laugh every time XD)

I'd also like to say that I _hate_ how Pikachu has lost weight in every game; it definitely looked best in Yellow, and speaking as a lifelong Pikachu fan, the HG/SS one is just apalling.


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## Elliekat (Apr 4, 2010)

I agree, moving back and forth two pixels and flashing blue does not count as an animation, especially when you use it for all the Water-types in the game.


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## xkze (Apr 4, 2010)

HG/SS is superior in almost all cases, and when it isn't, Platinum is.


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## UnderFire (Apr 4, 2010)

I don't know i like and think all of them are so good


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